A LETTER TO PARENTS FROM THE FOUNDER

I often think of a touching patriotic story that took place by a flagpole in
a city park. An older man proudly looked up at Old Glory as he quietly hummed
the Star Spangled Banner. Tears flowed freely down the trembling face of this
World War II veteran. A group of young people walking by noticed the old man and
began to shake their heads and chuckle. They didn’t understand the
price he and others had paid for that Flag. Similarly, only you know the price
paid in love and sacrifice for your son or daughter. Today’s children
are often strategic targets for spiritual battle and any child can fall prey.
For adolescents and young adults, alcohol/drugs, pornography and other sexual
sin, the drug culture, and the double life that goes with them are our most
powerful cultural predators. Addiction is a life-long battle but it is never
alone because it is a blaring alarm that warns of a bigger spiritual war. The
hooks that are used to lure young people into this trap include; physical and
sexual trauma, abandonment, the lack of attachment, neglect, peer rejection, low
self-esteem, boredom, family hurts, emptiness, numbness, daily social combat,
academic struggles, body image distortions, instant gratification emotions,
entitlement mentality, and the illusion that the wild side of life can give them
that feel good status that they can’t get anywhere else. Until an
effective way of dealing with these real-life challenges and needs is developed,
drug, alcohol, pornography, and sexual addiction behaviors are not going to
stop.

Kids who struggle with chemically dependency, drug/alcohol abuse, sexual
acting out, bad attitudes and behaviors, and the double life come from all kinds
of family structures including married parents, divorced parents, remarried
parents, and single parents. Some kids are birth children and some are adopted.
Some families are strong, loving, and committed, and some aren’t. Some
are rich, some are poor, and some are in the middle. Some kids are smart,
athletic, good looking, and religious, and some aren’t. However, all
of these kids and their families are the same as you and me, just real people
created by God to love and be loved at a core to core level of intimacy and to
fulfill God’s dreams for our purposes.

I’ve worked with more than three thousand adolescents struggling
with alcohol, drugs, pornography, sexual compulsions, and the systemic problems
that go with the territory. Every single one of these kids was gifted with the
same awesome, God-given potential as any other kid. The solutions were never
quick and easy, but they were always possible. In every situation I asked the
question, “What makes this kid’s story make
sense?” Not what makes it right or smart, but how did they get to this
point? When an adolescent gets involved in these sins, all involved parents and
counselors want to find the cause, and rightly so, because when you find the
cause, you find the keys to solutions. But the cause of adolescent and young
adult struggles like these has many pieces that work synergistically to create
the big picture. Like a jigsaw puzzle, it takes many pieces to create the
picture. Not all families are a part of the cause, but they are all indeed the
primary resource for solutions. Discovering the jigsaw puzzle is the first step
to a full recovery. Over a million American adolescents and young adults will
need treatment for alcohol and other drug abuse this year. Many tens of
thousands will go to inpatient treatment programs. The parents within those
families all want sobriety and a successful life for their children. Sadly, the
majority will fail. Only the minority will succeed. What determines the outcome?
The successful families identify; (1) the extent of the problem, (2) discover
the causes, (3) create a strategic game-plan, and (4) diligently take
intentional daily action until the battle is won, which includes the parents
doing “their own work” when needed.

In other words the families who succeed are the ones who accurately determine
the severity of the situation and bring a big enough gun to the fight. Taking a
BB gun to a grizzly bear hunt is not a good idea.

I often say “winning the battle” and I want to clarify
what I mean. Winning, overcoming, defeating, and other words denoting the same
concept are thought of in terms of an ending point. For example, “we
won the game” means the game is over and we had more points than the
other team. “We defeated the enemy” means the battle or war
is over and we are the victors. Winning, in the case of addiction, is defined by
learning to live a life that is healthy, balanced, fruitful, and fulfilling.
Once developed, an addiction is an irreversible condition of the brain and is
considered a disease by the counseling field. Overcoming in the context of
addiction is learning to thrive in spite of it, but it does not mean ending the
addiction because once an addiction is developed that condition of the brain
will always exist. Because a person has an addiction does not mean they have to
be actively using and abusing their chemical or process addiction activity.
Please hear what I am saying and not what I am not saying. I am not saying that
his life is destined to be a disaster centered on the idea that “I am
a defective person because I have an addiction” on the contrary, life
should be healthy, balanced, fruitful, and productive even with the
addiction.

A non-addicted person can start using a chemical (or other addictive
behaviors) on any particular occasion and then stop basically at any given
point. The person with an addiction cannot stop once he/she starts, like an
avalanche, once it starts it will not until when it finishes its course. Your
son may not have developed an addiction yet, but instead may be abusing alcohol
and drugs and/or porn and sex, thereby be on the path of addiction. In other
words, the switch of addiction may not have flipped yet and his “not
stopping” may be due to other factors with which he is struggling.
Having an addiction has nothing to do with character, spirituality,
intelligence, love of family, or self-discipline, thus the concept of disease.
The person with an addiction has lost the ability to control their use but
continues to do so in spite of the negative consequences they are
experiencing.

There is a genetic component at two levels that affects the development of an
addiction. First, the tolerance pace of the individual refers to how fast he
needs to increase his intake of a substance or the graphicness of porn, or the
risk of a sexual behavior in order to get the same mood change or feeling as he
previously did with a lesser amount. Second, as this tolerance pace is
continuing its course there is no way to determine at what point addiction will
develop. However, it does seem that a faster tolerance pace often correlates
with an addiction developing sooner and a slower tolerance pace with a later
development. But when will an addiction kick in with any given individual?
There’s just no way to predict it so from that perspective there is an
aspect of its timing that is a combination between genetic and environmental
factors. One person abuses drugs or processes for months before addiction kicks
in and another person abuses for years before developing an addiction. Just like
our skin responds differently to the sun’s rays, some people burn
faster than others. The concept of genetic predisposition is a strong factor as
far as the tolerance pace and the timing development of an addiction. However,
anybody can develop an addiction and these genetic factors, along with several
environmental factors, contribute to the speed at which it happens. The most
important thing to remember is that no matter when it is developed, once
you’ve got an addiction, you’ve got it for life. The goal
then becomes learning how to live a life that is free of addiction symptoms as
well as healthy, balanced, fruitful, and fulfilling.

Setbacks don’t turn into comebacks by getting lucky. Any comeback
is built on a winning strategy. The strategy includes praying with humility,
planning with wisdom, and acting with courage. The winning attitude is like the
tortoise on a triathlon, not the rabbit on a hundred yard dash.

If you’ve ever had a child in life-and-death danger, either
physically or spiritually, you know that nightmares can be true. You may never
have said it, but did you ever feel like God had broken the rules? Did you make
statements like, “How could God let this happen?” Any of us
parents would feel this way. Our experience with our clients and their families
is that God is using difficult situations to get a family the kind of help that
lasts. Doubting the scripture, “All things work together for good for
those that love the Lord” is a part of these dark days. That is where
faith has a chance to show up….in doubt. Without doubt, there is no
need for faith.

After years of working with young adults and adolescent males and their
families in these battles, I asked myself, “If this were my son or
daughter, what kind of program would I want for them?” My question was
answered with the vision of a program that had all the things I had ever dreamed
would help a kid and his family win this battle. God has blessed that vision
into a reality: Capstone Treatment Center. Its name is no accident because it
honors our Builder. That you are reading this letter is no accident either. I
believe that someday, maybe even today, you’ll know someone who needs
help because of the nightmare some family is facing. In your search for
solutions, please don’t wish for luck. Pray for God’s
guidance and see where He leads you.